Fly Me To The Polaris Views
Fly Me to Polaris is a Hong Kong remake of the 1978 Warren Beatty movie Heaven Can Wait, which was itself a remake of the 1941 movie Here Comes Mister Jordan. Chris Rock would later redo the formula in Down to Earth in 2001 with mixed results. All 4 movies have essentially the same basic premise and plot points: A nice guy dies accidentally, is given the chance to return to Earth in a new body, and pursues a woman who despises him in his new form.
Fly Me to Polaris stars Richie Ren in the dead-guy-come-back-to-Earth role. He plays Onion, a blind and mute in-patient at a hospital where hes’s cared for by the kind and adoring Autumn (Cecilia Cheung). When he gets run over by a car, Onion goes to a waiting room and is destined for a place called Polaris, but also while there Onion learns that he ’s won some kind of celestial lottery that entitles him to make one wish guaranteed to come true. Onion asks to return to Earth in order to pursue Autumn, of course. His wish is granted, but with stipulations: no one will recognize him in his new body and he can
Fly Me to Polaris has one big, glaring fault: it has no other subplot save the romance angle. Even Chris Rocki’s Down to Earth gave us a subplot involving Rock as a black man who dreams of being a stand up comedian and who returns into the body of an old rich white man. Beattyi’s Heaven Can Wait had Beatty as an athlete obsessed with going to the Superbowl who returns into the body of a despicable millionaire married to a woman plotting to kill him with her lover. The love angle for both movies were subplots that eventually won out, but there was always that other thing on the side to occupy our time if ever we should get bored of the romance.
The problem with Fly Me to Polaris is that there is no other subplot — the film is essentially a one-trick pony, and the trick isn ’t all that interesting for an hour and a half. The result is that if you happen to find the romance to be not all that interesting, then you#’re out of luck. After Cheuk ’s 3rd or 4th or even 5th attempt to convince Autumn (to no avail) that he ’s Onion and that hem’s in love with her, I started to zone out. Perhaps this type of bubblegum romance could hold the attention of a 12-year old girl for 90 minutes, but unfortunately Is’m in the wrong age group as well as being the wrong gender.
Fly Me To The Polaris Images
